For many people, Christmas time is a fearful time. The light that shines in the darkness can stir awful, blinding fright.
In fact, the sun nearly caused me to crash my car on the drive to Port Alberni yesterday. We’ve had big snow storms this week which left the roads a bit dangerous. Everything was a melting mess, leaving a slushy, salty, sandy, brownish slop on the road. After driving through Cathedral Grove, there is a straight stretch before reaching “the hump,” a 1000ft steep climb through a mountain pass. This straight stretch of road was banked on both sides by huge walls of snow which had been scrapped off the road. In front of me was a truck, behind me was another truck. Cars were whizzing by us in the opposite lane, glad to have made it down the hump alive. Brownish slop was spraying up onto my windshield making driving difficult. My wipers and washer fluid were only ridding the glass of half its mess. I kept poking my head to the center, top or extreme side of the windshield so that I could see the road.
Just then, the sun screamed down and radiated my car with its awesome glory. It shattered through the low lying clouds and smashed down on my stained glass windshield. As the sun hit the caked slop, I became completely blind. I couldn’t see anything in front of me except hardened slush and iced washer fluid with a bright spot trying to penetrate through the grime. I quickly considered pulling over but threw that option out the window as I remembered the snow banks on each side of the road. As I braked I could see the semi react perilously close behind me. Just as I wondered about which direction the imminent collision would come from, the sun became obscured again by the clouds. I had survived 300 meters of blindness in which my heart beat at least 1000 times in my throat.
I rounded a couple bends, rolling down my window and reaching around to the front trying to wipe off the windshield of its grime when the sun attacked me again. Blurred panic rushed through my brain and my fingers as I clutched the steering wheel which controlled my life. All I could think of doing was aiming for the truck in front of me. Better to slam into his bumper than to veer off to the opposite lane and get smashed head on. If I was going to meet my demise, at least I wouldn’t cause another persons downfall too. “Go away!” I yelled at the sun. “I want the shadows!” Thankfully, the sun listened to my fearful cry and left me alone. Another 300 meters of road had passed under my exhaust and I was still alive. But in my sigh, was fear. Deep gnawing fear that the sun had found me and that I needed to get cleaned up quick… or the next time the light came into the world, my grime would be the end of me.
John 3:19-21 "This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God."